


Like Tears in the Rain

by Tempestad



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Drinking Coffee Like Water, F/M, Forced Mutism, Insomnia, Introspection, NCR Wins the War, Paranoia, Personal Growth, Post-Canon, Secret Identity, Self-Denial, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, chain-smoking, self-deprecation, unlikely bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28701960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tempestad/pseuds/Tempestad
Summary: A year later after the victory at Hoover Dam, the Mojave has been assimilated into the NCR. With the Republic's pros came also the cons, such as bureaucracy and work precarity.Unemployed and with their savings already operating on a tight budget, two men find themselves signing yet again for caravan work to discover that, despite having won the Dam, NCR roads are treacherous for everybody.Especially for a disgraced Legion Frumentarius with a fake passport.
Relationships: Female Courier/Vulpes Inculta, Rose of Sharon Cassidy/Original Male Character
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	1. Things you people wouldn't believe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... remember I said I had crappy Vulpes fics in store that needed to be revised before publishing them? This is the only one I had that is multi-chaptered, so I'm posting it apart from "Inculta" One-Shots. More Vulpes/Female Courier. Because I'm that monothematic.  
> I know, I know, I said that it was to be divided into 4 chapters and now it says that it has 5, and here's why: because the last one, besides being inhumanly long to be coherent with the format of the rest, was literally unsalvageable. So I had to rewrite the second part of said last chapter almost in its entirety.  
> Meanwhile, here you go: the first three chapters. Heed the warning tags.

* * *

Life after the Legion existed.

Not the life he would have envisioned when he had been younger, still a recruit in training with aspirations and ambitions of his own, but a life nonetheless.

As far as a caravan guard life qualified, that is. Inside NCR territory and with a semi-certified passport stolen from a dead Republican soldier with his own photo – bless the skilled Vegas forgers still accepting Legion coin for their services – styled on it, he had found disappointing how quickly the threat the Legion had posed at the eastern shore of the Colorado had vanished from the memory of the now occupying troops at Vegas, making a child’s play to feign the Prospector part looking for a more stable job now that the “Reds”, as they called the legionaries, had disappeared from the face of the Mojave desert.

As if their glorious thirty-five-year-old culture and History had never existed.

As much it had pained him to admit it at first, this hadn’t been something he hadn’t been expecting for a long time.

True that he has had held some hope still for some miracle to happen and cure Caesar of his malady; even for him to last time enough so their victory over New Vegas would have provided them of enough Followers of the Apocalypse prisoners so one of them could diagnose and treat the Son of Mars’ illness.

He hadn’t lasted even for Lanius to arrive from his campaign on the East.

Nor that the Legate had lasted much longer, for his reign had been but short-lived when he had fallen prey to the Courier's trickery, talking his ear off time enough to get the Monster of the East confided and unguarded enough to shoot him in the back the moment Lanius had decided to take her word for granted and acquiesce to a truce until the NCR would have been strong enough to pose a real challenge to his strength.

Lanius’ pride had been his undoing, the same that Caesar’s lack of foresight had been the Legion’s.

And now, the Legion was no more the same he was no more Caesar’s most trusted Frumentarius.

He had learned to accept that the same he had grown accustomed to his current name. Old and new the same, interchangeable, it’s meaning immutable.

Just as he did many years ago, changing the tribal life for the legionary one. Wildness for ruthlessness. Survival for competition.

A different kind of hard life the same.

He had been chosen as a Frumentarius early in his career after that _incident_ with his _livid_ Centurion and a whip meaner than many because he was flexible, adaptable.

True that it had worked in his favor not just that he had spent so many years among the Profligates that he knew how to mimic their customs down to perfection, but that now, with the Legion erased from the face of the desert, all of the propaganda posters showing (partially) his face had been decommissioned from all the military posts.

Pity, since he would have liked to keep one of those, just to admire the irony of his situation.

“Well guys, we’re stopping at the 188, two miles up North.” – his employer’s caravanner claimed cheerfully, fanning his flustered face with his cowboy hat – “We’re staying overnight, so we can take a break and…” – he never finished the sentence when a bullet embedded itself between his brows, his body falling flaccidly onto the railway path they had been following.

Vipers.

He had forgotten how many raider gangs had decided to push their luck back on the Mojave now that the Legion wasn’t controlling eastern territory.

NCR incompetency about holding the land tended to make stellar apparitions when things were starting going relatively well for him.

In the short span of a year, this had happened already three times to him.

And he had learned to dodge bullets, claws, or teeth rather than interposing himself between danger and the merchandise of whoever happened to employ him.

Since this was mercenary work, no sense in holding onto any remaining shred of honor he might happen to still retain in him. It wasn’t really worth it. Not anymore.

Once he had rolled aside, finding a spot behind a rock, he heard Seward calling out for him.

“Fox!” – the other man exclaimed, several paces behind a rock ledge – “Fox, where the fuck are you?!”

He unpinned a grenade, counted down to five and threw it to their assailants. He took advantage of the confusion the explosion created to get to his partner.

His nine-month-old partner. An NCR ex-sniper.

The Universe never ceased to awe him with the consistent stream of irony in which he now lived.

“There you are!” – Seward huffed once he managed to get to him – “Those bastards got a motherfucking assault carbine and automatic SMGs!”

Keith Seward, from 1st Reconnaissance Battalion Bravo Team, formerly stationed at Camp Golf. He had met him at the Crimson Caravans’ office waiting for his turn to sign within a long line of another forty men looking for caravan work.

“Spot for me, will ya?”

Seward had been right after him, and he wouldn’t shut up. So, although reluctantly and incredibly uncomfortable at having to socialize given his precarious circumstances, he had introduced himself as Fox Danvers, the name that read on his fake NCR passport.

“Two o’clock. Forty yards.” – he said after taking a peek through the binoculars. Seward shot and hit them square. One shot, one kill.

“Contact!”

He hadn’t been sure why the man had chosen to strike a conversation with him, pale, gaunt and without the typical bulky muscular build so common amongst mercs. Seward had told him later that he had struck him as the soldier type, a silent one though.

“Ten o’clock. Thirty-eight yards.”

The man was around his own age, thirty-something. He had asthma and a slight limp product of the Second Battle for Hoover Dam, where a Legion machete had dug more than the overflowing field medical tents after the battle could treat.

He had been discharged with honors, but damn if he was going to spend the rest of his life working on a motherfucking office begging for scraps back at Shady Sands, his own words.

“Contact!”

For some odd reason, once he had started talking, the man had deemed necessary to tell him all of this, deciding to sign up with the same caravan that he had been assigned to. He suspected Seward had taken his continuous silence as genuine interest in what he had to say.

“Eleven o’clock. Thirty-two yards.”

Since then, the ex-sniper seemed under the impression that the two of them were friends, going as far as teaching him basic spotter jargon so the two of them could work as a team in situations like this.

“Contact!”

He hadn’t mind learning, just the same he hadn’t mind teaming up with a man that, under very different circumstances, he wouldn’t have hesitated lashing to a cross like he deserved, just as the rest of the NCR Degenerates.

The two Viper remnants attempted a last suicidal move launching themselves at their hidden spot. Seward killed one, he finished the other once the raider managed to jump over the rock that had been serving them as cover.

After that, they had a smoke.

“Tribals.” – Seward sneered with disgust, the tip of his military boot digging on the war tattoo forming a snake one of the dead men wore on his back – “Don’t want books, don’t want medicine, don’t want laws. Don’t want anything that reminds them of the Old World… but damn if they don’t know how to use _motherfucking_ guns.”

In another life, he would have replied to him that he, a tribal, had grown to appreciate books, medicine (as far as their beliefs about not depending upon pre-War chems had allowed him) and laws (Legion laws, to be precise) way more than many of NCR citizens he had had the displeasure to meet… but now, he found that he’d rather have his smoke in peace than discussing politics, ideals and cultural differences with someone that wouldn’t appreciate his honesty one bit.

Honesty could be sometimes such a burden. The more if you have been half your life lying about who you really are.

Such as sharing a filthy habit with your former enemy for the sake of blending in.

Seward had found it weird that he wouldn’t spend his monthly payment either on alcohol, chems, hookers or fancy clothing each time they completed a cycle between Shady Sands and Vegas.

So, he had picked up one of his faux toxic habits when he had been posing as a gambler while incognito a year and a half ago at the Strip. Previous experience with tobacco, thus handling it without throwing a coughing fit, had made him seem like he was a regular smoker trying to quit.

Now, he kind of got restless if he didn’t have a smoke at least three times a day.

Despite suffering from asthma, Seward was also a regular smoker, said it help him with his anxiety, so he had automatically assumed that he must be suffering from the same problem.

With Seward was easy to blend in without giving away too much since the man tended to project on him everything he missed from a comrade.

And he rarely asked personal questions, more on the side of sharing his life than asking others about theirs.

So, it suited him to play the silent part of the strange duo they formed just fine. Not that sharing his life experience with an NCR ex-sniper would do him any good.

Once he finished his, he dumped the cigarette end the same dandy way he had seen countless times doing Chairmen in Vegas when they shared a smoke or two in front of the Ultra-Luxe, pondering what was it that made their skin crawl about _“those finks at the White Glove Society”_.

Seward got up after him.

“Gee.” – he complained, eyeing the monumental disaster their caravan had turned into – “They fucking got the brahmin too. That means half the regular payment.”

He shrugged. Better the brahmin than them. Besides, the raiders got a sizable loot in armors and guns they would later sell at Mick & Ralph's before going to the main office of the Mojave branch of Crimson Caravans to deliver the bad news to Jamison, their employer and the son of the current owner of Crimson Caravans since McLafferty got demoted due to a _very coincidental_ investigation some _anonymous_ courier did on behalf of a friend.

“Help me getting this shit up so we can take as much as possible.”

Not that they won’t be packing up like mules dealing with the most expensive wares, but it was a shame to leave all that good meat rotting away in the desert.

Meat that, a year and a half ago, going on a daily basis of maize gruel back at the Fort, he would have done _anything_ to get ahold of.

He hadn’t known how the others had fared, since nobody else around him had shown any symptoms of losing weight and muscle mass like he had done, spending sleepless nights studying maps, devising strategies, sorting out information from the indecent amount of reports he had been getting on a daily basis from his spies.

Dodging Caesar’s ire every time he sent his Frumentarii to Zion on a suicide mission none of them ever came back from.

Biting down his tongue at every single venomous remark the Butcher would throw at him in the face of his failures.

Attempting to decipher how the mind of one single woman pulling at all the political threads on the Mojave worked.

Now that he thought about it, the indecent amount of stress he had had to deal with back at the Fort had made him skip meals more times than he had bothered to count.

He used to go _so hungry_ since the Mojave Campaign started…

* * *

The only thing he had to concede to the NCR when it came to relatively innocuous vices was that coffee was a lifesaver sometimes.

“Don’t think that would be good for your insomnia, you know.” – he heard Seward saying over the rim of his beer bottle – “That’s the fourth cup you’ve gulped in a row.”

He shrugged again, making a signal to the waitress to serve him more of the black beverage. No sugar, no milk. Slightly scalding, if possible.

If he cared, which he didn’t, he would have replied to the other man that alcohol also caused various kinds of neuronal damage, such as increasing apoptotic cell death and reducing cell proliferation through prolongation of the cell cycle. Or so he had read in a medicine book.

But he’d rather preferred to go chain-smoking whilst pumping his brains with caffeine without sharing knowledge nobody had asked for as he tried to keep his mind far away from this afternoon.

“What a load of brahmin shit, that cocksucker Jamison. Who the fuck he thinks he is?”

A daddy’s boy who had happened to have more power than capabilities over a caravan business he didn’t have the slightest idea how to administrate in the first place.

“We should have kept some of the good stuff. At least we would be now several hundred caps richer.”

A daddy’s boy who had fired them. And without pay liquidation.

They had issued a formal demand against the Crimson Caravans at the courthouse the Republicans had founded at the Strip after taking House, the Families AND Lanius out of the equation. But knowing just how slow NCR justice worked, they would likely be getting monetary satisfaction in ten years minimum.

That, if they were still kicking around, that is.

Who would have told him that, a year later since his career had gone to the gutter, he would be undergoing the same dull, bureaucratic rituals the NCR shoved down all of its citizens’ throats? His life was a joke.

Martial excellence, loyalty, and justice had been once the basic pillars of a culture he had given the best years of his life. Now, an uncertain future filled with unstable employment, scavenging, bureaucracy and self-serving survival awaited his late adulthood and middle age.

Suddenly, life had lost all of its colors. From red and gold, now his existence navigated amidst black and white waves of apathy and resignation.

Like the Profligate he had become.

He needed another coffee. Or maybe he should start drinking. The fewer neurons he got, the stupider and happier he would be without complicated ideas bubbling inside his brain, making him more useless and depressed than he already was.

He was so incredibly done that he didn’t flinch when Seward’s hand clasped his shoulder.

“Hey.” – the man said, eyes reddened but firm – “We’re finding another job, ‘kay? A better job with hot, raunchy broads instead of those uniformed, stick-up-their-arses old crows at the Crimson Caravans’ offices.”

In another life, he would have cut the fingers of that daring hand and would have made him eat them, one by one, for touching him.

Now, he simply assented mechanically. Meek, bland.

His former self would have _despised_ what he had become.

“And if we don’t…” – why he couldn’t shut up? Why he had to keep talking, making him face just how pathetic his existence had become? – “I still have contacts within the Army. You’ve got good eyes and you’re not a half-bad shooter. I say in a year or so we both can get a destination… after you get the basic training done and I go to the shrink, that is. Maybe here, maybe further East. They say there are still Legion out there living the raider way and…”

He had stopped listening at that point, unwilling as he was to allow his mind painting a picture of what Caesar’s Legion had become once their leaders and half of their army had fallen under the Bear’s paw.

Raiders. Bandits, pillagers, scavengers, thieves. Without a higher purpose than having something to eat tomorrow. Regressing back at their uncouth, brutalized tribal roots.

Many tribes had been raiders, content with playing guerrilla against their neighbors.

Others had been cannibals. Or slavers. Or junkies.

Such as his tribe.

What would Seward do if he told him what he had been once? Why he had believed in a system that had given him much more than his weak, depraved, drug-addicted parents could have provided for him if they didn’t sell him first?

Seward had told him that he had been discharged not because of his limp, but because he didn’t want to see a psychiatrist to treat his PTSD. That none of his peers could stand his screams at night or his persistent alcoholism.

And now, just because he thought he had a friend in someone he barely knew, he was willing to undergo treatment so the two of them could have a stable job?

He had snorted at that. As if his life couldn’t get more bizarre, to become a soldier amidst the ranks of those he had once fight against would be the cherry on top of the humongous irony that now conformed his existence.

Seward mistook his self-deprecating sarcasm for genuine humor, so his countenance brightened, raising his half-empty beer.

“For finding a job, THE job.” – he said.

It took him a moment to realize that this was meant as a toast. Profligates and their odd customs.

But he raised his also half-empty mug of coffee and toasted silently.

That night, per usual, Seward woke up a couple times screaming whilst he simply lay on his assigned bed of the shared room they had rented already awake, recalling that very night when Lucius had gotten inside his tent uninvited, disheveled and confused, saying that Caesar wouldn’t wake up from his bed.

That had been the beginning of the longest week in all his life, dreading the moment Lanius would arrive and claim his place sitting on the throne of the _Imperator_.

* * *

For two weeks, they had been knocking at every door of every single person who had been posting recruiting advertising at every single bulletin board in Vegas.

Since many Republican citizens had moved on forward to the Mojave looking for a new life, getting a job now was like looking for a needle in a haystack: they asked for paper-written recommendations and/or regulated qualifications, even for farmer job.

Seward had enlisted at sixteen without many studies to his name and he, with his faux Prospector past, was as good as any merc trash the Brahmin Barons hired for peanuts to guard their ranches.

If he had thought that getting a caravan job within NCR territory had been hitting a bottom, the quicker their savings dwindled renting a room at the most despicable hovel in Freeside, the deeper that bottom got.

The situation had become so borderline that he had gotten a stomachache giving the dubious quality of the cheap food they now had to go by and Seward had developed abstinence syndrome when even pure ethylic alcohol had gotten too “luxurious” for their shirts. Not that any of them would suffer undergoing treatment at the Old Mormon Fort, Seward because of his ill-placed Republican pride.

Him because he feared someone there might recognize him.

They had already two days of late payment at the room they were sleeping at, and soon they would be sleeping in one of those rundown houses, surrounded by beggars and junkies looking at them for something to snatch.

So they hadn’t questioned anything when they had seen caravan guard job WITHOUT stupid qualifications beyond knowing how to shoot announced at one of the bulletin boards first hour in the morning.

The name “Cassidy Caravans” had sounded vaguely familiar but it hadn’t rung a bell until they had had the owner right in front of them, studying them with a critical eye.

Well into her thirties but dressing and behaving as if she were ten years younger than she truly was, the wiry, peppered redhead cowgirl with the ripped jeans that had received them had made him freeze in place despite that he knew she couldn’t possibly know who he was.

“I’m hiring on two more hands, so it seems like this is your lucky day.” – she told them gruffly as a welcome – “I pay half up front, the rest when reaching destination. One hundred caps plus any dietary expenses.”

That was a third of what they used to get at the Crimson Caravans, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“What about the ammo?” – he would have stomped over Seward’s foot… should he had been less shaken from this violent discovering – “If we find some trouble along the way…”

“You run out of ammo, you get a surplus box of whatever caliber you might happen to use as long as it isn’t energy weapons or that sort of shit.” – she stated sternly – “Don’t like it, don’t sign.”

They both used standard .308 rounds.

“You’ve got a deal here, lady.” – was Seward’s genial answer, earning a lopsided grin out of the redhead as they shook hands.

They signed their due mandatory papers and soon the woman took them with another man she had hired previously to the Freeside Northern Gate.

If he had been already inhumanly tense, he thought he would vomit his meager breakfast when his stomach gave a painful twist as soon as they got outside the gates, where two packed brahmins and a willowy woman with a broad-brimmed hat and a duster awaited them.

She had been kneeling beside one of the animals, checking the lower leather straps so they wouldn’t slide off the mutant’s belly.

“Everything okay, Six?” – the redhead woman, Cassidy, asked.

Then, as if his worst nightmare had decided to haunt him while been awake, the infamous Courier Six turned around, facing them with a big smile that quickly died on her lips as soon as she caught sight of him.

“Yeah.” – she replied after what had felt like an Eternity – “Yeah, I’ve checked the packs and everything seems in order.” – then, taking her penetrating gaze off him, she looked at the other woman – “This will be all? Are we ready to depart?”

“Hell yeah, girl.” – Cassidy laughed, already in good spirits – “’S been a while since I traveled Republican roads, but never said I wouldn’t be back on the saddle!”

The moment they hit the road, he already felt the Courier’s eyes burning his spine under the scorching sun of the Mojave.

He wanted to puke so, so badly.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Seward was born due to my inability to put Boone in his place, given his personality and traumatic issues. I wanted to put Vulpes with the last person he would have liked to partner with, but finding himself in the need to.  
> I also remember that, when I started this story, I was VERY depressed because I wasn't able to find a job (I'm still unemployed, but my thoughts are less dark), so I think my thoughts at that time mirrored what I was writing, since our protagonist finds himself in the same tessitura.  
> Anyway, enough ramblings, here you go.


	2. Off the shoulder of Orion

* * *

She was toying with him.

For days, since they had abandoned Vegas going South down by the Long 15, he had found her eyes trained on him more than he had deemed comfortable.

And not just when they were traveling.

His insomnia had worsened since he had found out the first night that he couldn’t sleep, had turned inside his sleeping bag to face the fire, seeing if the warmth would get him a bit somnolent for a change, and had found her eyes passing through the flames that separated them to lock on his.

To say that it had grated on his already frayed nerves would be an understatement. It had taken every single ounce of self-restraint and discipline not to get off his sleeping bag, take his rifle and blow her head off.

And he would NOT fail, unlike the miserable Benny Gecko did a year and a half ago.

Then, after looking at each other for a while, unwilling to even _blink_ should a single moment of distraction would allow the viperine woman to be the one training a pistol on his forehead, she had unfolded an odd smile before turning on her sleeping bag, curling inside and getting the rest _he_ wasn’t likely to get after such a display.

She remembered him. She remembered him and she was rubbing it on his face, letting him know that she wasn’t afraid of him, that she could give him her back whereas he was the one who should watch his own from now on forward.

Somehow, he had hoped that her renowned brain damage coupled with the whole year she hadn’t seen his face (or part of it anyway) would have sufficed to make her doubt at least.

Caesar always chose his Frumentarii carefully not only because of their mental flexibility and adaptation on any given field, but also because their physical traits weren’t too noticeable.

He had always been aware that his stature wasn’t anything special whereas his face was easily forgettable.

The only thing that always gave him away, apparently, had been his voice; so, since he had parted ways with the Legion the very moment he had seen that the battle at Hoover Dam had been definitely lost even before Lanius had been brought down, he had made everything in his power to keep his mouth shut, only speaking in situations he couldn’t avoid.

Seward himself could testify this, since half the time the only sound he bothered deign to respond to his incessant monologues with were grunts of acknowledging.

And he hadn’t opened his mouth even once since their journey with Cassidy Caravans had begun.

However, it seemed that, despite everything, the Courier still remembered.

And now, he was trapped in her sick game.

It made him anxious, not knowing if her ex-companion-now-employer was privy of the secret of his true identity as well, feeling like walking on eggshells around both women as they kept whispering between them, eyeing him from time to time as their conversation went, meeting his carefully schooled blank expression with toothy, insincere smiles.

He found himself drinking coffee like water and smoking like a chimney both to keep him from sleeping when it was the turn of either of the women doing night watch, and then to fight the growing panic that threatened to snowball him sooner or later.

His stomach hadn’t gotten better since they had abandoned New Vegas despite that the quality of his meals had substantially improved. He felt like throwing up all the time.

Seward, on the contrary, was - mercifully – oblivious of what was happening, his eyes too occupied following the firm bounce of Cassidy’s ass to bother noticing anything else.

Their other companion, a forty-something-year-old Hispanic man that went by the name of Pablo, was as equally oblivious as Seward and twice the chatterer, always coming up with an anecdote of his own or people he knew to fill in the gaps between stops and meals.

Cassidy was quite the talkative woman as well, sometimes coming up with humorous quips that he, half the time, didn’t found so funny given how reiteratively sexual her jokes were.

The only other soul that was as silent as him, was the Courier.

He tried to recall if she had been particularly verbose on their first encounter at Nipton, when he had greeted her with a discourse he had been _itching_ to deliver to the next tourist that would come to answer the town’s sirens chants.

He didn’t remember all of her answers but, once she had acquiesced to deliver his message to the Mojave Outpost, he had bid her _vale_ with the distinct impression that she hadn’t been impressed at all. Disgusted, yes, but, by no means, impressed.

It had suited him just fine; she having been at that time an unimportant wastrel that only served to fulfill her function as an observer and an informant to the NCR so they would be aware that the Legion had crossed the Colorado _much_ further than the Cottonwood Cove military outpost.

The second time they had met had been at the Strip by nighttime, with her abandoning The Tops casino with a black eye and smelling of grease and gunpowder, the Platinum Chip moving between her knuckles with essayed artistry.

He had been dressed as a gambler, a fedora obscuring his features when he had passed the Mark onto her as his Lord had ordered him to do so; another carefully – although shorter – constructed speech to sway her, to make her feel gifted and special, marking his words carefully around the topic of she being handed the Mark of Caesar being a tremendous honor.

He had left her a bit disappointed when she simply had told him that she would think about answering his Lord’s call.

Not an immediate answer, which was never a good signal.

Just like now. Not an immediate threat, but one laying low, biding her time before she dropped the bomb to the rest of the group.

He didn’t know about Pablo, but he knew that Cassidy was a firm defender of her country, the NCR, whereas Seward would limit himself to blow off his head with a single shot.

And he would be lucky if such a thing would ever happen, for he suspected that the Courier was biding her time until they reached the frontier at the Mojave Outpost to rat him out to the local authorities and get the due reward for his head.

On the fifth day of their trip, taking the Nipton Rd. Rest Stop as a cover from the sandstorm that had caught them halfway the dreaded Mojave Outpost, he had been nursing a Wasteland Omelet sandwich when he had heard the unmistakable sounds of flesh meeting flesh followed by low moans next door. A man and a woman.

Pablo had been tasked with guarding the brahmins that they had gotten inside the other building, and the only other present soul eating her lunch as well had been the Courier.

He didn’t need to put one and one together to venture who were the ones engaged in such a frantic activity, which got awkwardly _obvious_ when one of them – most likely Cassidy – began hitting the wall that separated the storeroom in which they were at it and the main store in which the Courier and he were eating. Each pounding matching perfectly the tempo of the woman’s moans.

He tried to ignore them, keeping an eye on the Courier as he finished his sandwich, her cheeks unusually reddened under her hat whilst she kept eating silently as well, avoiding looking directly at him for the first time, which gave him a brief respite until the other two finished and got back to where they were as if nothing had happened.

Cassidy’s cheeks had bloomed pink as she had straightened her shirt, sitting down by the Courier, asking what they had for lunch.

Seward had remained quiet the rest of the day, but his eyes had been twinkling and then, finally, his overly-communicative nature had bested him when the two men had been alone and then he had gone on a long tirade of unnecessary _graphic_ details about his encounter with the redhead woman that the ex-Frumentarius had _not_ asked for.

That evening, when the topic about who will be guarding the brahmins had risen, he had volunteered silently, wishing for some mental peace whilst being far away from the Courier’s incisive eyes.

No such luck, since he received a visit from the woman in person in the middle of the night, asking if he’ll play a hand of Caravan with her, since she couldn’t sleep.

It had been the first time she had attempted to initiate dialogue with him and not the other way around like the two previous times. Nonetheless, he had shrugged silently, his rifle lying by his side, ready to confront her should she decided to show her true colors.

He had been knowledgeable about how Caravan rules applied, since his cover had taught him many other ways to “socialize” than pure and simple conversation, so he had accepted her offer with a nod.

They had played four or five times, her eyes flickering often between him and her cards, which had proven his indisputable victory every single time.

Forty caps richer when she had called their match off, he had taken a cigarette from his pack and had attempted to lit it with no luck so far. His lighter must have been run out of oil.

“Here.” – she had told him, producing a matchbox out of her duster pocket, offering it to him.

He had accepted the offering silently, taking what he needed and returning it to her once he was done.

He smoked looking apparently distracted at an undetermined fissure on the roof of the old structure, his left hand resting over his rifle all the time, his right holding up the cigarette to his mouth, taking languorous drags whilst he waited for her to make the first move.

However, nothing but the dawn came, and he found himself eyeing the extinct butt of his cigarette laying at his feet, the Courier soundly asleep sitting against a wall, her black bulletproof duster wrapped around her lithe form like a sort of a chrysalis around a dormant Cazador larva.

Seeing her like that, strangely, allowed him to make peace with what will be awaiting him at the Mojave Outpost and allowed the first rays of a pink, warm morning to settle in, crossing through the dust and boards nailed to the windows.

He didn’t feel the itch to smoke as he watched what he thought to be his last sunrise.

After that, he woke up the Courier and walked silently towards the neighbor building, knocking before entering.

Just in case.

* * *

He didn’t recall the Mojave Outpost to be this organized before.

Heavily guarded with a Ranger at every single possible corner, the place looked cleaner whereas the once precarious wooden platforms atop the two concrete buildings had been strengthened and expanded significantly. There were no more sack barricades but sturdy metallic walls between the outpost and the desert, each corner defended by two snipers atop lookouts. They had even installed two automatic turrets on each exit should the human element would prove insufficient.

The Republic had gotten prosperous and way richer, many funds reaching the Mojave now that the Bear’s flag was waving proudly at the highest point of the beaconing 38.

Cassidy went directly to the bar on the barracks to be promptly followed by Seward, who winked at him before disappearing inside the busy building.

Pablo simply conducted the brahmins to the drinking troughs and he and the Courier got tasked with guarding the wares.

He simply sat on a rock and started cleaning his gun, briefly entertaining the thought of stealing some indispensable food rations and water to keep going on a week or so the moment the Courier would decide to go inside the office headquarters and rat him out.

However, said moment never came, but the woman instead decided to sit with him on his rock, back to back as there wasn’t enough room to sit one next to the other.

He willed his muscles to remain the same despite how inhumanly tense his jaw got when her paddled shoulder blades brushed his.

“Got a smoke?” – she asked out of the blue after a while, her hand already turned back as if to receive what she had asked for, her penetrating eyes under the brim of her hat eyeing him from a corner over her shoulder.

Blue met hazel briefly, and a strange mute communication he couldn’t quite place passed between them before he offered his half-empty cigarette pack.

She took two, which surprised him at first as she put them on her lips, lightened them with a match and then passed one to him.

He accepted it without a word, trying with all his might to mask his surprise. The cigarette tasted slightly of the perfumed lip balm he had seen her apply herself a couple times when they had started to crack and peel off due to the heat.

“This is actually the third time I’ve been here.” – she spoke out of the blue again, her voice slightly tired – “It seems it had changed for the better in the last year.”

He made a noncommittal affirmative grunt.

“Wonder if the rest of towns around had undergone the same fate.” – she observed again – “Primm seemed cleaner. Dunno about Goodsprings or Nipton.”

He gave his smoke a long drag, wondering where this apparently innocuous conversation would take them. Did she want to talk about Nipton now? A year later when his lesson didn’t hold any meaning anymore?

What did she pretend? For him to confess all of his alleged crimes – tactical choices made in the name of warfare – so she could demonstrate to him just how vile and wrong his ideals had been? How barbaric and backward Legion customs had been when comparing them with the Republic’s?

So she could laugh at him playing the honest citizen part now that his desertion had effectively nullified all of his previous grandiose discourses?

That his words had been as _dishonest_ and _disloyal_ as he had accused once the so-called Profligates to be?

Nonetheless, no more words were exchanged between them when Pablo came an hour later to help them reassigning the wares and he was free to roam around the military complex at his leisure, expecting that a group of NCR armed men will come get him any time soon.

Said armed group never arrived and then, dinnertime ensued and he found himself sat at the bar next to Seward nursing a coffee while the other man confided him that he believed he was in love with their ardent redhead employer.

Said employer arrived later already well in her cups to sit next to the man with a whiskey bottle in hand she didn’t waste time in sharing with him through very unorthodox long, deep kisses that involved a small gulp of alcohol passing from her mouth to his.

For every rip, there is a patch; for every alcoholic, there’s another alcoholic. How fitting.

The ex-Frumentarius left them alone when the show they were unabashedly giving to the rest of the world took on a more sensuous turn. He had already finished his coffee anyway.

That night he didn’t catch any sleep as he listened to the distant noises of muffled moans and rusty springs screeching at regular intervals a few bunks away whilst he lay awake eyeing the upper bed of his own bunk.

It was dark at the barracks and he had brought his rifle with him to the bed; Cassidy Caravans’ wares secured in the various trunks at the feet of their beds. Pablo was snoring on the bunk by his left when the willowy figure of the Courier arrived to occupy the one at his right.

She sat, putting her hat over the mattress, kicked off her boots and began rubbing her sore feet when she noticed him awake, eyeing her with suspicious, narrowed eyes.

Then, she did something he hadn’t expected at all.

One by one, in a most casual fashion, she peeled off the layers of her combat armor, unbuckling belts slowly, her burning eyes passing through him without blinking even once.

When she folded her equipment over the metallic trunk of her bed, she passed so close to where he lay awake and paralyzed, that his eyes caught every single curve of her toned legs and hips, gleaming a surreal tonality of grey and blue from the emergency light at the closed bar near the barracks.

Then, sitting again on her mattress, she took her knickers and the undershirt that covered her torso off, showing an unobstructed view of her naked, sweaty form silhouetted against the big room’s half-lowered blinds.

He found himself unable to take his eyes off the surreal, strangely alluring form that undulated in front of him briefly before getting under the bed’s sheets, her eyes still on his, issuing a silent challenge. A nightly predator crouched in her nest, ready to gut any unsuspecting prey blind enough to answer her unvoiced promises.

Both observed each other silently for hours until she was the first one closing her eyes, her perspiration growing cold the same her breath softened.

His grip around his rifle had gotten so rigid that his whole arm hurt when the first light of dawn broke through the blinds. The sun caressing her soft curves under the sheets being the image his treacherous brain decided to pick as a consistent thematic for the rest of the day when they packed again and crossed the frontier, leaving the Mojave and its mysteries behind.

* * *

She was taunting him.

As if his paranoia couldn’t get any worse, there she was, always falling a step behind him, always silently addressing his inaction.

At this point, he had developed a theory that she was testing him, as absurd as the notion might sound.

A ‘casual’ brushing there and there, uncomfortably long stares, deliberate intonation on every small word she happened to toss at him despite how brief and unilateral their verbal exchanges were… and then, the tension before going to sleep, with her eyes drilling into him, daring him to call her out her little transgressions.

She was also draining his tobacco reserves as well, for she now always asked him for a smoke or two daily, always picking two, always being the one lighting them, the lingering taste of her lip balm now another unwanted sample of what might await him between the threads of the spider web, haunting that part of his brain he had willed himself to ignore for the better part of his life.

The tribal had been a simple boy with simpler desires that never had anything to do with what a man might have wanted for himself. He had led a simple, aimless life surrounded by irresponsible adults too deep in the syringe to care for him half the time.

The recruit had still been a boy, one too concentrated in living yet another day to pay attention to what his heart had wanted. And so, he had learned that, to survive, he must work hard, not wishing anything for himself.

The Frumentarius had wished to believe in the cause he repeatedly regurgitated under the guise of inspirational discourses that, ultimately, had been more of a demoralizing tactic for the enemy troops than true belief in what he was fighting for. But he had dared to wish, he had dared to believe in something beyond himself… and so, he had swallowed his own discourses and had paid homage to a man who said he was the reincarnation of a god.

Later, the betrayer had wished to live. More than anything else. He had clutched to his life the same a drowning man would do to a float amidst the ocean. And so, he had renounced to the virtues and glory he had been taught to accept and revere the same way it comes to one as natural as breathing.

The mercenary had wished for a job, and so here we were.

But now… now the man had dared to wish for something so impossibly suicidal that all his previous lives looked like a cruel, bad joke to him.

Sex had never held much meaning to him before. It could be used as a weapon, a way to obtain information, blackmail and the like. His first time had been when he had been fifteen, with a slave way older than him, and he hadn’t even enjoyed it much, lying on his back and allowing the woman to set the pace, wishing to get out of the tent as soon as possible, embarrassed and awkward once the other boys had started exchanging experiences.

It had been a passage rite, something that he had been expected to undergo as to add on the breeding rates every single legionary was forced to do at least once in their lives.

Completely impersonal, pure duty.

Political targets at the Strip had been simply unavoidable encounters, some better than others, but he had never been the one actively seeking to engage.

Again, duty.

And now, with all of his commitment to a non-existent organization reduced to ash, here he was, entertaining the notion of answering this woman’s unsubtle, dangerous teasing that could get him, sooner than later, on an early grave.

It might be the depression, seeking a way to get out of the dark pit he was in by grabbing onto what sparse vanity he might still have… or the overcoming desire to just get over with everything.

To simply have his throat slit the way he deserved.

Suicidal thoughts hadn’t been recurrent, but still an ever-present thematic throughout the last year, as weird and contradictory as it sounded.

He had wanted to live and he was actually frightened to face what might await him on the next life… should said next life _actually_ existed, mind you… Just the same he was actively seeking to be punished for his betrayal.

The Courier could offer him either of the alternatives his fractured psyche so desperately needed.

So, he hadn’t resisted at all one night when their camp had been surrounded by Nightstalkers and he had been the one in charge of the guard.

The abominations hadn’t been many, but he silently had lured them far away from the asleep forms of Seward and the rest to chase down the critters one by one.

He had managed to get two down for good when the bulkier third one had launched at him, effectively throwing him on his back, with his rifle being the only thing between him and the thing’s curved, elongated fangs.

He had struggled with the Nightstalker, its weight pinning him on the sandy ground as its forked tongue caressed his cheek, hunger insinuating on its unnatural eyes when a silenced shot had blown off the scaly abomination’s head.

He hadn’t had the time to react when another five Nightstalkers had poured in and he, somehow, had ended back to back with a very awake Courier, who had wielded her silenced pistol in unison with his more spaced rifle shots until not a single serpentine hiss had filled the nightly air.

His grip, yet again, had been inhumanly rigid around his weapon when the aftermath of the battle had washed over the two of them, soft panting vibrating through their communicated, armored backs.

Then, her spine had unglued from his, leaving behind a slight sensation of body heat loss that was soon replaced with dread once her body had gyrated around his and her hands had found the front of his shirt.

A handful of fabric was bunched inside a fist, a slight pull, and then her lips crushed on his.

The shock coming from such an audacious, bold move left him stunned, paralyzed, his knuckles whitening around the inhumane grip on his rifle, now resting flat against his belly as she planted herself on his vital space, invading him, asserting her power.

Her breast came to rest against his ribcage and soon, a spark of that strange mute communication back at the Mojave Outpost reignited again, as if their silent journey trying to decode one another on the road had reached a satisfactory conclusion.

He then willed himself to react by returning the kiss cautiously. His dry, terse lips slowly opening as she invaded him.

His hands eventually let go of the rifle and he found himself trying to accommodate their shape to the angles and curves of her armored body, unused at wanting to touch something but daring not to push his luck.

However, her hands were quick at finding him and all the sinewy angles he had to offer, pinning him to a nearby rocky salient.

“God…” – she breathed hoarsely once she separated briefly from him, as if admiring the prey she had just captured – “I’ve been wanting this for so long…”

He didn’t get a chance to even ponder on her words when she nibbled his earlobe, an astoundingly sensitive spot he had never given much thought before.

She found plenty sensitive spots on her road trip mapping him, unbuckling straps and prying his naked skin from under his many layers of clothing.

That night, the moon was big and eerily argent on the sky the same her naked silhouette arching over his’ had collected silver beads all over, shining between her breasts down her stomach to die amidst a forest of also gleaming curls. Flesh meeting flesh reverently, giving way to illusion and fascination to the conflicted, undone man lying under her, gasping at her every ministration as he allowed memories to flow; giving way to the profound shame and satisfaction he experienced by knowing that, having been their roles reversed, what a swift, unpleasurable end she would have met at these very hands of his that now were caressing her in every possible way until she ripped her pleasure out of him and him of her.

Her aftermath embrace, puffy lips still finding his throat from time to time to give him lazy nibbles, felt strangely comforting despite having half her weight still atop of him, galaxies twinkling far away over her naked shoulder, his hand dancing absently over a crisscross of little scars peppering around her thighs, hips and ribcage.

She muttered something indistinguishable to him and soon fell asleep across his also crisscrossed naked chest, his insomnia invading him with old memories translated into old closed wounds.

At least physically speaking, that is.

* * *


	3. C-beams glitter in the dark

* * *

He had started to pick on her moods very quickly after that.

That first encounter had settled a very discernable pattern: her unsubtle taunting had ceased to be replaced by a tacit consent to behave as if nothing had happened at all during the day to have their filthy way with one another as soon as one or the other got tasked with night guard duty.

They never wandered very far from the encampment (and he was sure that at least Cassidy had heard them if her knowing, unjudging smile was of any measure to go by) and their encounters never lasted more than twenty minutes.

Apparently, this had turned out to be a much more desirable outcome to his paranoia and self-scourging attitude than he could possibly have hoped for.

Apparently.

If he had doubted this _affaire_ from the very start, he now was dreading the moment her heated attentions would eventually cool off to give way to non-unilateral verbal exchanges.

For he now was sure that she didn’t remember him from Nipton. At all. The woman he had given his most-essayed discourse ever would have NEVER entertained the notion of getting in the sack with one of Caesar’s most renowned ‘lackies’ without slicing his throat immediately afterwards. Like her Black Widow reputation had suggested him she would.

Although, he had to concede that such a reputation, besides being indemonstrable, had pertained to her courier life before the bullet. Or so his spies had informed him once.

She was even warming up to him after each session, peppering him with soft kisses that didn’t speak of a hidden threat ready to jump, but rather of a very standard feminine amorous disposition.

Too amorous, to be perfectly honest.

He had overcalculated her cunning and underestimated his possibilities, and now he had found himself with a lover of sorts whose genuine attraction simply baffled him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t find her appealing, because he absolutely did… but he also didn’t know what to do now with a woman so apparently… normal.

As normal as an amnesiac-driven NCR celebrity could be, anyway.

Paying more attention to her conversations with Cassidy, he found that they simply were very close friends rather than the fearsome partners in crime he had feared them to be that now shared ownership of Cassidy Caravans, mostly re-funded with the Courier’s savings, and wanted to keep a low profile after the Second Battle for Hoover Dam. Politics not something they wanted to experience _ever_ again.

One dance with General Oliver was enough for a whole lifetime, apparently.

Cassidy was also her guardian of sorts, given that the Courier would often forget even something as basic as to hydrate herself every half an hour in the desert.

She would also randomly forget names and places with Cassidy always being the one keeping her grounded.

“I wish I had my dog here, you know?” – she had expressed once wishfully to him despite that he would only answer her with affirmative, negative, or noncommittal gestures and grunts – “I miss him so much. Dunno where he went after the battle.”

“Didn’t you leave Rex back with the King because you said roads were way too dangerous for him?” – Cassidy had asked almost casually, hinting at an already discussed topic the Courier, apparently, had forgotten.

The willowy woman had blinked once slowly as if awakening from a catnap.

“Yeah...” – she had confirmed after a while, her broad-brimmed hat dissimulating the sudden pink flush on her cheeks – “Yeah, your right, Cass.”

The other woman had nodded with a fond, immensely patient smile and the animated conversation she had been holding with Seward had been picked up where they had left it as if nothing had happened at all.

But, for him, the situation had reminded him so much of Caesar’s last months – when his reports would be received with spaced-out looks and brief memory lapses - that he now felt slightly guilty, playing on a woman’s inability to remember if they had talked even once since they had gotten together to keep on his charade while fucking her.

He didn’t know where this strange guilt came from or if it was guilt _at all_ … but he already had half a mind of signing for bouncer job at one of the disreputable casinos at New Reno and get over with Seward and his strange friendship, Cassidy and her disconcerting good humor, Pablo and his incessant chattering… and Courier Six and her _very tempting_ lips and evasive memory.

That night, once they had set camp, she had sat so close to him that he hadn’t known how to react until she had put an arm around his waist and he had relaxed instinctively as Seward’s incredulous look pivoting from him to her had evolved into the stupidest smile ever.

“Fox, you dog!” – he had exclaimed, unusually happy.

If he had been expecting an answer, a shrug had been all he had got.

Cassidy, on the other hand, had smiled silently, directing them a glinting look of sympathy.

He hadn’t liked such a reaction coming from the both of them. It gave him a sensation of belonging, and attachments were a dangerous thing.

His plan on signing for bouncer job was becoming more and more clear as the days passed, the frontier between the Old State of Nevada and California a week behind them as the first population coming into view was the Vault City.

When he first had visited Vault City working for Jamison at the Crimson Caravans, the ex-Master Frumentarius had been rendered even more speechless than he already was.

The streets had been pristine, more than adequately paved with clean cobblestone, and the one and two-story buildings had been gleaming white.

The food there had been fresh, radless. Even some illustrious citizens, throughout the years with the Republic’s expansion, had managed to replicate both the Nuka-Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla recipes down to almost perfection, so he had tasted as much cold caffeine without compromising his health as he had wanted.

They even had gardens with lush, emerald green flora and tall trees that had given him much joy to contemplate.

Also, chems and any other spirituous beverages than regulated synthetic alcohol weren’t permitted within the city’s walls, to the ex-Frumentarius’ much awe and Seward’s endless chagrin.

Vault City usually paid well merchants, so Cassidy had called it a stop to pay a visit to her old contacts at the Big Circle’s Offices.

Their brahmins had been hosted at the Courtyard pens and they had paid a modest sum of caps at the local Tap House to buy a few nights until Cassidy figured out a deal with an old friend of hers, Heather McClure.

The Tap House’s rooms had been as modest as the sum they had paid for them. The men had shared a common bedroom with three beds whereas Cassidy and the Courier, evidently wealthier than their humble employees, had picked an individual room for each one.

Seward had disappeared “mysteriously” in the middle of the night and hadn’t come back until next morning to shave and go, still yawning, to the bar to ask for a bottle of _regulated_ synthetic whiskey (with the due alcoholic graduation low enough to avoid barfights) he had immediately shared with a bedraggled Cassidy. At _fucking_ 07:00 AM. Breakfast of champions. Yeah.

He had avoided the Courier for the rest of the day, going outrightly to _ridiculous_ lengths so they wouldn’t coincide even at lunch and supper hours, spending his time among the city’s lush gardens until night had darkened the sky, coating it with dense clouds that had quickly evolved into a violent downpour that had caught him midway back to the Tap House.

He had barely crossed the hallway arc when a pair of slender arms had encircled his waist from behind.

“Hey.” – the Courier had greeted him in an almost shy, totally uncharacteristically fashion, her voice low, her lips and nose nuzzling him softly in-between his shoulder blades – “You’ve been awfully absent all day.”

Unsure as to how to respond, he limited himself to stick to the usual acknowledging by grunting noncommittally.

Nevertheless, she had laughed quietly, her lips smiling against his dripping shirt.

“You’re soaked.” – she said after a while – “Come with me. We gotta get you out those clothes.”

And unclothed did he ended sitting on her bed, a large towel enveloping him like a chrysalis as she strived to dry him off all the rainwater. He had to admit that it felt nice, to have someone caring for you enough to not wanting for you to catch the flu or something.

When he was dry up to her satisfaction, she also relieved herself of her clothes and got in the bed with him.

Although he was incredibly exhausted both as a result of his insomnia and the weather change they had experienced upon abandoning Nevada, he awaited patiently for her to make the first move.

But she limited herself to huddle with him, accommodating her head under his chin, and fell asleep between his arms.

He didn’t know how he had abandoned consciousness when he awoke the next morning at 06:30 AM still holding the asleep, naked woman breathing against his skin.

* * *

Days in Vault City were spent in placid contemplation as Cassidy worked out a deal with the Big Circle so they could admit her again on their trading routes, way safer than the ones independent caravans used avoiding the Republic’s tolls at the price of being often ambushed either by raiders or radscorpion packs.

The deal being with the Big Circle ensured that her caravan would have all its stop tolls covered for an annual quota she had to pay in order to pertain to their L.C.

So much bureaucracy bored the ex-Frumentarius to no end but, fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about a business in which he was merely an employee. As long as Cassidy kept paying them, he wasn’t going to complain.

In fact, he had – albeit reluctantly – begun to warm up to the idea of sticking with Cassidy Caravans for yet another trek back to the Mojave once their business in Republican soil had concluded.

Not that it had something to do with the woman in whose bed he found himself sleeping every night. Well, perhaps a little. Maybe.

The day after the rainy night incident, he had left the room silently to buy some breakfast at the bar counter. The owner had eyed him like she would kick his sorry ass out of the empty cafeteria, but she had served him his coffee with brahmin ham and eggs without further adding than a tired, murdering glance.

Since it had been Sunday morning with the sun barely rising up the sky, he could understand the sentiment up to a certain extent.

Profligates in the far West weren’t much of early birds, he had discovered the last year.

In the Legion, being asleep past six o’clock in the morning without being ill, wounded or part of the night shift patrol was punished with twenty extra push-ups after the usual morning drill plus skipping breakfast. Since food rations had tended to be more on the lacking side, the punishment was bad enough for a hungry stomach to take your responsibilities seriously. A lean legionary was a lazy legionary. Usually.

He had been lean since he could remember, and that had earned quite the scoffs amidst his comrades until he got promoted to _Decanus_ and many waggling tongues were silenced. For a lazy legionary would have never gotten promoted at barely seventeen, an age when boys are more preoccupied with glory and getting laid (not necessarily in that order) than serving _efficiently_.

Half of his life had passed since he had been deemed _efficient_ amongst raw recruits not even worth the trouble to teach them how to wield a rifle to counteract the Republic’s attacks… and still, he felt like the harsh life he had led among Caesar’s ranks hadn’t prepared him one bit for the kind of life he was leading (or more like _attempting_ to lead) now.

He felt lacking in so many departments that the anxiety he sometimes experienced in the face of his utter ignorance had started to become the providential unwanted guest one cannot get rid of and had to silently suffer.

It was one thing to _pretend_ to blend in with the Profligates while spying on them either at the New Vegas’ Strip or at the Freeside… and another entirely different one to _reconditioning_ the very same mindset that had kept him alive inside the Legion since the assimilation.

It was one thing to _feign_ interest in a woman to use her as an information source… and another entirely different one to _show_ appreciation towards a woman whose company he… kind of enjoyed.

His social and emotional ineptitude tended to surface at the worst possible moments, such as when the Courier had gotten out her room twenty minutes later to find him still having his breakfast.

“May I sit?” – she had asked with her own coffee and toasts she had asked at the bar counter for in her hands.

He hadn’t understood the question. Why would she ask for permission to sit with him when she hadn’t asked for permission to hound him until she had finally gotten in his pants? The notion seemed ludicrous at this point.

He might have stared at her way too long, since her posture deflated a bit, eyeing nervously the cafeteria space as if not knowing what to do with herself, deciding to sit across him rather than by his side.

The silence that had ensued after such an apparently insignificant episode had been tense with her eyes not leaving the plate in front of her and him fiddling with the coffee cup until the excuse it had proportioned to him to be occupied with something else vanished as soon as he emptied its contents.

Unsure as to how to handle the situation, he had fished a cigarette from his pockets.

“No smoking here.” – the owner had warned him, relaxing her tone once she had noticed his perplexed expression – “Sorry, you gotta take that to your room or outside.”

Since he didn’t want to return to his shared rented room to confront Pablo’s relentless snoring, he had picked up the chance to get some fresh air without having to deal with the sudden heaviness at the cafeteria.

Nonetheless, the Courier had followed him outside.

A quality he could appreciate from the woman was that she only spoke if she really had something to say… which didn’t apply in this situation when she had leaned against the Tap House’s wall, watching him gulping systematically one drag of filth after the next.

He was running _very_ tight on smokes at this point, but he had offered her one the same.

That had seemingly eased the tension between them when she had accepted it as silently as she had been offered, sharing a few minutes of idle quietness she had broken once she had decided to open her mouth again.

“I’m off today to buy more ammo and meds at the market.” - she said after puffing a cloud of greyness out her lungs – “Wanna come along?”

He hadn’t caught himself on time to refrain from nodding mechanically.

Nevertheless, she had smiled. Good answer, apparently.

“Okay.” – she had confirmed – “Stores open at eight. I say you and I got a shower first and get out of here in half an hour or so… if you like.”

He might have misinterpreted things, for she had eyed him awkwardly when, once inside the Tap House, he had directed his steps towards his shared room… to be turned around by a confused Courier that had her room’s keys in hand while holding his forearm with the other.

His own confusion must have shown because she had spoken again.

“Um… you coming?” – she had asked, pointing her eyes to her door.

Oh.

He had allowed himself to be pulled inside that shower, nonetheless.

However, the pretense at soaping and scrubbing hadn’t lasted much when her trail of kisses had descended from his jaw to a much lower part of his anatomy.

Whereas his former undercover spy work had put him more than once inside Omerta territory, he had been rarely serviced in such a fashion and found the experience oddly thrilling with one of her hands rubbing his lower back in circles whereas the other aided in the practice she was doting him with.

He had almost slid down the tiled floor between water, soap and the afterglow tremors, but she had giggled, apparently finding his lack of coordination endearing.

“You ought to relax more often.” – she had said once they were drying themselves with those impossibly monstrous towels the local offered to its clients; her heated skin against his’ immensely compelling as she kept on prodding his body with caresses and kisses – “It’s way nicer when you don’t bite down your reactions and open that mouth of yours instead.” – she had added playfully, nipping his throat lazily – “You have a nice voice, you know.”

He hadn’t realized he had been so _vocal_ at her display, so he had abandoned the Tap House in her company half an hour later immensely mortified, praying that her capricious memory wouldn’t suddenly start connecting dots. He had to be more careful.

Which he could start with by simply limiting their contacts as much as possible.

Which also was easier said than done, to be perfectly honest.

The _“buying more ammo and meds”_ at the market had evolved into a much bigger deal when she had begun perusing guns’ magazines, expensive modifications for her small collection consisting of some of the most lethal guns available on the market, batches of sweetrolls and Cheezy Poofs like no tomorrow… and, thankfully, tobacco to last minimum for a whole month for the two of them.

He had helped her to carry the whole monstrosity back to the Tap House in order to store it around her room so she could distract herself during their stay at Vault City by adding her brand-new mods to her guns while fattening herself up with trash. Her words, not his.

He had been looking forward to lunch, since it would give him an excuse to put his mind off the situation with the Courier he totally WASN’T in control with.

But avoiding the woman had ended becoming quite the tricky task, the more if she seemed to be literally _everywhere_ he turned to.

His _grand_ solution had been locking himself in his shared room alone since Pablo was out and Seward was at the bar trying to get himself as tipsy as the synthetic alcohol of this accursed city would allow him, chain-smoking relentlessly with his mind spiraling back into paranoia as he dissected the earlier shower scene in detail, trying to remember if he had said something beyond opening his trap, moaning like a cheap whore.

Self-scourging was another thing he was quite good at, since every single decision he had made the moment he had defected the Legion at Hoover Dam had turned out a persistent self-inflicted punishment for his treachery.

He hadn’t dared going full scavenging in the aftermath of the battle despite knowing it would make him rich because he had feared being recognized by someone. He had not dared infiltrate the Republic’s army like Picus had done several years ago just because he couldn’t bring himself to show his face at McCarran, where many of his agents knew who he was.

He could have led an easier life inside the Republic… and he had chosen not to.

Night had arrived and he hadn’t abandoned his room to order his supper. He just wanted to get in bed and…

The soft knocking at his door worsened his blooming headache.

He dreaded what he might find on the other side and didn’t dare to turn the door’s handle.

The situation was pathetic. He was pathetic.

“You there?” – her voice asked from the other side – “Wanna come over my room? I have some pre-War holotapes we can play on my Pip-Boy…”

Steeling his nerves, he opened the door and eyed her with bloodshot, immensely tired eyes.

“Shit, how much have you smoke?” – she questioned, scrunching her nose – “I can barely see beyond the door threshold.”

Turning briefly his head behind, he had to agree with her regarding the stale, unhealthy grey fog that permeated the whole room. He might have abused tobacco a tad too much today.

“Okay, let’s allow some fresh air enter the place.” – she said, braving the thick fog until she found the window and opened it. He hadn’t realized that it was raining outside – “Pick a change of clothes, you stink.”

He obeyed her with a defeatism so demeaning he knew he would have slit his own throat… had he still been the man he had been a year ago.

She led him back to her room and got him in the shower whilst she put his used clothes in the sink with soap and warm water.

And so, he found himself again wrapped inside a giant towel sitting on her bed whilst she kicked her boots off and sat hip-to-hip with him, putting a whole unopened box of Cheezy Poofs over his lap and a couple sweetrolls whilst she tinkered with her electronic toy.

“Eat something. You haven’t gotten out of your room even to get some dinner.”

He munched absently what he had been offered. The treats were tasty, crunchy and delicious… but everything had an underlying ashen quality that was making the tasting a little unsavory.

Maybe he should quit.

“I’m gonna be the one dosing the smokes since you cannot be trusted with more than a single pack at a time.”

Or maybe not.

They ended huddling with one another, watching some silly pre-War movie on the tiny screen of her device about a man studying dinosaur bones that got tangled with some whimsical woman’s shenanigans that included getting cross-dressed and a leopard, among many other stupid situations.

Once the movie session was over, she seemed to pick on that he was in no mood for nightly transgressions, so she allowed him to dress in silence and get back to his room since it was pretty late.

“You… um…” – she hesitated, fidgeting once he was opening the door to leave – “You could… you know… bring your stuff and sleep here.”

His silent stare must have had discouraged her, for she quickly corrected herself.

“No… forget I’ve said something. Goodnight.”

This time, the one who got a closed door in front of his nose was him.

He returned to the room to discover that, unsurprisingly, Seward was nowhere to be seen as well as his stuff. His empty bed looking less and less inviting by the minute.

He suffered Pablo’s snoring for a whole hour while listening to the rain tapping softly on the window’s crystal, insomniac and unwilling as he was to let go of the odd tingling crossing rivers at the back of his head, before giving up and gather his meager possessions to come knocking at the Courier’s door at the ungodly hour of 03:08 AM.

He was still inwardly debating whether this was or not a good idea when the door opened in front of him to reveal a drowsy Courier, cutting his escaping options for good.

He answered her puzzled look by lifting his backpack, arching a brow in question.

That night, rain fading slowly in the background, he slept like a baby in her arms.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: the fourth chapter is almost done, so it will be posted soon. The fifth one is an epilogue that I'm still working on.


	4. Near the Tannhäuser Gate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: descriptive violence and gore. Tread with caution, my good fellows.
> 
> Since I am a Blade Runner geek, I'm suggesting you a piece of its Soundtrack for this particular chapter:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLWnXDMZa2s

* * *

It kept raining for the next three days they spent in waiting for Cassidy to finish her business with her contacts inside the Big Circle. Seward wearing a long face during the day whilst coming back to life by night, when the redhead would come back to keep him company, one day even bringing with her smuggled whiskey from New Reno, retiring themselves early that night to drink away their mutual lust and miseries in each other’s company.

Pablo kept his comings and goings mostly secret, the Courier already forming a few plausible scenarios of his unsubtle secrecy, all of them mostly dealing with the local “date house” and the covered shipments of Jet coming, again, from New Reno in a feeble attempt to break in Vault City’s enclosed economy, where security was tight and smuggling drugs and outside, unregularized alcohol was severely penalized.

He himself, on his part, spent most of his time in the Courier’s company sharping knives, cleaning guns, watching her modest collection of pre-War holotapes she had been picking from the Mojave’s numerous Vaults in the last year, sometimes coming with an anecdote about where did she had found a particular holotape and the kind of critters that populated such abandoned places.

He usually paid attention to her recallings, trying to identify the places where those Vaults had been, his mind displaying the very same map he had kept studying since the _Malpais Legatus_ lost the Dam almost six years ago.

She sometimes stumbled upon names she didn’t remember, so she would simply consult it on her Pip-Boy, where she apparently wrote down what she deemed “important stuff” since her short-term memory was sometimes tricky at best.

What she seemed to remember perfectly was how to please a man.

He had found himself sometimes tangled with her in practices he hadn’t even thought they were _anatomically possible_. Not that he was complaining, though.

Or maybe this was a common occurrence amongst Profligates and them legionaries were the ones left with the most boring, rudimentary sexual practices almost entirely focused on reproduction.

Thing is… that sometimes he felt _utterly lost_ when he wanted to reciprocate her attentions and didn’t even know _where_ to start.

She was patient enough to show him, though; finding his _inexperience_ immensely… “cute”, as ridiculous as the notion had sounded to his ears.

Nevertheless, he was glad she was as tight-lipped as him on these matters, unlike Seward, who sometimes was too overwhelming on his decidedly _overly-wordy_ explanations regarding his torrid affair with Cassidy. Not that the woman seemed to mind, since she was as equally unabashed and shameless when it came to sexuality.

And, speaking of Cassidy, the woman finally dropped the bomb at lunch after almost a week of futile comings and goings that she took good care of sharing as he was stuffing his cheeks with some gecko medallions with mashed peppers and potatoes.

So he, basically, hadn’t been allowed to savor his lunch in peace once Cassidy got unusually early back from her dealings with the Big Circle and simply sat on Seward’s lap while recounting, frustrated, how incredibly _slow_ were these matters in Republican soil and how _pissed off_ she was with the new rates and the taxes’ percentages since the Mojave Campaign had been so costly to the NCR’s arks that, no matter it's progressive economical recovering, the citizenship would be the ones paying those expenses for a few more years until fiat currency would be up again now that the Legion’s _Denarii_ were more of a curio than an _actual_ currency.

Bottlecaps will be still at their top-notch, though, for as long as the Hub had something to say about it. And their water backing deals were still too much for the devaluated Republican dollars.

“I should have gotten back to the water trading business.” – Cassidy whined – “No sense in supplying these assholes with neat consumables when they’re paying peanuts for them.”

“Then let’s travel to the Hub.” – Seward had suggested – “Better now than much later when the rest of the money has flown off.”

“That’s almost two months’ worth of traveling back to the Mojave by the 95 and taking the Long 15 route down Southwest.” – the red-headed woman sighed tiredly – “By the time we’ll get to the Mojave Outpost, I will not be able to pay either of you the rest of the trip’s expenses. We’re already running on a tight budget.”

He saw the Courier flinching, probably regretting dearly the trip to the market from the other day.

However, Seward kissed the redhead on the cheek in a way that even got her off-guard, not to speak of the silent ex-Frumentarius, whose appetite had kept diminishing as the woman’s explanation on their current economic situation had kept going on.

“You don’t worry about paying shit as long as everybody can eat.” – he said – “If Pablo doesn’t want to tighten his belt a couple notches, you can prescind of him. You still got us. Right, Fox?” – he added, turning his hopeful eyes to him.

He suddenly found himself with three pairs of eyes trained on his person, expecting a compromise out of him he hadn’t signed for.

He still could make his way Southwest down to New Reno. A couple weeks living off the land and the money he had saved could do the trick. There were those caravans smuggling Jet that came and go between there and the rest of the Republic’s controlled territory to go back for more. He could just ask if he could travel with them to avoid highwaymen groups and…

… And he probably would be better off with the Courier far away from him, risking she would want something more than a quick tumble and a little pinch and squeal every once in a while…

… And he would be _finally_ left in peace, no strange companions acting like _friends_ and no even stranger lovers acting like they _cared_ shit about him…

… And he was going to _throttle_ Seward the very moment his head nodded slowly on its own accord.

Then, an unexpected, kind of awkward (at least to him) merriment had settled amidst the four of them, celebrating what he understood they thought to be a kinship of some type.

They laid off the news to Pablo that night who, instead of signing out of Cassidy Caravans, proposed an alternative route to avoid such a big detour.

“We could simply go directly to New Reno and keep going down Southeast to Shady Sands, then to One Pine, Junktown and, finally, the Hub. The only true challenge will be the trip between New Reno and Shady Sands, and we can still use the detour around Broken Hills and then going a while Southeast with the 95, then going through Vault 15 to the Capital.” – had been his reasonable enough explanation – “This way, we’ll save almost a whole month of traveling worth and you can still pay us when we’ll arrive at the Hub, no?”

Everybody agreed to follow this new route and went immediately to sleep so they could start packing early in the morning and leave Vault City with the first lights. The sooner they got back on the road, the sooner they will reach the Hub.

Seward had called him aside so nobody could hear them.

“Thanks for having my back at lunch.” – the man had muttered, his hand clasping his shoulder warmly – “For a moment I thought you were going to ditch us… but you didn’t.” – he added, almost moved – “You’re a good pal and you deserve this life as much as I do. We _deserve_ this life. And you know it’s a good life, Fox, a _truly_ good life. Maybe not a very profitable one… but these women work hard and, don’t know about you, but I never was one for soft gals.” – he sighed, rubbing his nape awkwardly – “You know, Rose doesn’t care that I’m a fucking cripple that screams at night… and the other one doesn’t seem to mind that you’re the closest thing next to a mute with a permanent resting bitch face regardless of your actual mood status, so maybe this is our lot in life, Fox. Good women usually stick with good men they can trust.”

He had gone to bed mulling over Seward’s words, undecided as to what extent he could agree with the man’s definition of a “good life”, not entirely sure that the “good, reliable man” tag could either apply to him, an ex-legionary beginning anew amidst enemy territory.

With these thoughts whirling around his disquiet mind, he had been listening to the rain tapping against the closed window when the Courier emerged from the bathroom and wormed her way silently to the bed, embracing his form from behind, accommodating her leaner body against his.

She surprised him when she leaned over to give him an affectionate peck on the cheek whilst she intertwined her rough fingers with his even rougher ones.

He drifted to unconsciousness as easily as he hadn’t done in years, feeling that, for the first time since his defection, things were starting to be alright.

* * *

It took four days to reach the old Pyramid Lake to resupply their canteens with clean enough water. From there, they decided to follow the sinuous Truckee River down to Nixon, now a ruin the NCR was trying to recondition into a trading stop. Lots of construction machinery and austere tents were what populated it now with a handful of Rangers watching over workers, and that had been all of it.

Since it had been still raining, they had allowed them to rest inside one of the common tents through the night, though. And had paid well for food supplies, which meant more incoming for the next weeks.

They followed the river down the 80 Line, then going all West to New Reno.

They never really made it to the city.

He had heard throughout his incognito time on NCR territory gathering intel about the Golgotha.

Named after a Biblical hill, New Reno’s Golgotha had held something in common with its unfortunate namesake: crucifixions.

While baffled at the apparent irony dwelling inside this tiny Republican piece of land, he had never had the chance to contemplate the place itself… until now.

“Don’t like this place.” – the Courier had stated after watching the ominous elongated silhouettes of stringed up corpses casting long shadows down the earth, rotten flesh and bone peppered with the already present drizzle announcing a storm coming from the North – “It reminds me of…” – then, she had stopped, trying to recall something – “Of… of…”

“Nipton.” – Cassidy finished for her, eyeing the distant cross-shaped graveyard with evident disgust – “Funny thing they still allow Bishops, Wrights and fucking Van Graffs practicing this shit after the goddamned Mojave Campaign with the Legion.”

He found himself sweating profusely while trying to gulp down the big bad lump that had formed in his throat, Seward by his left cursing between teeth at the sight.

The only one who seemed abnormally calm had been Pablo.

He should have seen it coming from a mile away, but the rifle’s butt that was thrust between his ribs had come with force enough to send him to the ground, vomit seeping through his teeth and burning nostrils making the task of picking up his rifle and targeting challenging at best.

“What the f…?!”

Two shots later and he, amidst blurry sight, was able to discern Cassidy’s glassy blue eyes wide open a foot or two ahead, the lower part of her mandible completely blown off, leaving blood and teeth peppering dispersedly the soil under her corpse.

Then, Seward produced a sound he hadn’t known the other man had been capable of.

A sound that had condensed wrath and anguish so perfectly it would have passed as a coyote howl.

Retaliation didn’t go very well when three more shots silenced him.

Wiping vomit from his mouth and nose, his brow was promptly threatened by the barrel of a rifle.

“If you don’t wanna end like your friend, I suggest you put your hands behind your head and kick your gun to me. Nice and easy.” – Pablo told him coldly, signaling his rifle with his eyes. He did as he was told – “Now you’re gonna get your sorry ass up and run South until I cannot see you. Turn around and I will blow your fucking brains off, get it?”

A soon as he got on his two feet again, his eyes swept all over his surroundings: from Cassidy’s mangled corpse he saw Seward’s with a bullet between brows and another two in his stomach. His blood already mixing with dirt and rainwater under his body.

Then, he saw the Courier. Her left temple bleeding slowly, her unfocused eyeballs gathering raindrops without any sort of nervous response.

“Move!” – he distantly heard Pablo snarling, the barrel of his gun kissing his nape.

He acknowledged the order as if wasn’t meant for him, since his brains had gotten a very different speed as of how things were currently playing.

He rounded the rifle’s barrel in a maneuver he wouldn’t have been able to pull had it been a smaller gun. He didn’t even flinch when the other man pulled the trigger and the metallic barrel burned under his calloused palms.

He used the impulse to turn around again a hundred eighty degrees, this time with the gun between his hands, to use it as a club, hitting Pablo in the back with all the strength he was able to muster.

The older man fell face down on the mud, hands and knees sinking on wettened soil. He had tried to make a pitiful attempt at grabbing the knife he had hidden in his boot to face a brutal kick on the mouth, sending several bloodied dental pieces away.

Disarming and subduing him had been _obscenely_ easy, he had thought bitterly once he was sitting on Pablo’s chest, legs paralyzing sloppy, fluttering arms, and a hand crushing his windpipe, making the man’s skull sink in mud whilst the other neared the knife to his left eye.

“P-please…”

“Please?” – he echoed with a soft, very cold intonation, watching how Pablo’s eyes widened in a mixture of surprise and fear when he heard him speaking for the first time – “It amuses me greatly every single time a Degenerate such as yourself would appeal to mercy after showing their cards this _abhorrently_.” – he spat, his brow and chin already dripping rainwater – “As if your ilk never learns that, when you face a legionary’s judgment, there’s no mercy to spare for those we deem weak.” – he relished in the unadulterated terror he now read in the other man’s eyes as he kept talking – “Any last words?” – he added, nearing the point of the knife to Pablo’s eye.

“No, wait! WAIT!” – the Hispanic man exclaimed – “This wasn’t personal! It was a job! I was hired to finish off both the Courier Six and Rose of Sharon Cassidy!”

He paused minimally, taking the point of the knife to the man’s jaw instead, drawing its line slowly, methodically. The glinting blade collecting small watery pearls.

“Go on.” - he purred encouragingly.

“I’m…” - the bloodied appendage of the man’s tongue surfaced amidst toothless upper gums like a wriggling worm as the _rat_ dared to tempt his luck further – “I’m not telling you shit if I’m not getting guarantees of…” – his tirade was cut as soon as the ex-Frumentarius freed one of his hands and simply took his thumb to promptly remove it with a well-angled slice.

His pitiful howling didn’t move him one bit when he neared the now crimsoned knife to his eye again.

“I am afraid I did not make myself sufficiently clear on this: you are not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know. We can do this swiftly and painless enough… or we can do this with _me_ reducing _you_ down to a pile of _tiny chunks of flesh_ until not even your own mother would recognize you, _Degenerate_.” - he hissed, gums and nostrils hissing with a _very_ different kind of burning than the remnants of vomit – “And I will not stop there, since what would remain of your carcass, I will throw it to the next pack of coyotes I find.” – sinking his own thumb where only a stump of the other man’s remained, drawing pink rivulets all down the other’s hand and wrist, he added – “Naturally, the choice is only yours.”

“F-fuck you.”

“Wrong answer, Degenerate.”

He kept removing fingers until the other man began sputtering nonsense about New Reno’s Families.

“T-T-Tiaret V-Van Graff…” – Pablo gurgled, his bloodied lips trembling, his eyes and cheeks gleaming with trails of rainwater and tears – “S-she h-hired m-m-my s-servic-ces b-because of an ug-g-gly deal ‘bout t-two of her ch-children… gotten arrested b-by NCR authorities in V-Vegas… T-the C-Courier a-and h-h-her friend h-had s-something to do with it s-s-somehow…”

Closing briefly his eyes, he felt how a muscle in his jaw twitched twice. His fingers sinking on Pablo’s tender throat viciously, making the other’s speech even more gurgled and difficult to understand.

“M-my j-job was t-to t-thwart Cassidy’s c-connections on t-the B-Big Circle so s-she would b-be forced to ch-change her traveling p-plan… then t-to lure ’em to t-the G-Golgotha s-so I c-c-could m-make an example of ‘em…”

He resisted the temptation to keep from squeezing. His whole body trembling atop the other man.

A trembling that had nothing to do with the freezing downpour they were amidst.

“Tiaret Van Graff…” – he repeated, rolling the name on his tongue slowly – “Is she waiting for your report at Redding?”

For what he had gathered about the Van Graffs through his web of spies, since the Legion had managed to get a weapons’ supply agreement with them before the Courier had cut down their business on the Freeside for good, had been that, while they owned several gambling and weapons’ selling establishments at New Reno, their main headquarters had been at a little mining town called Redding, Southeast of the Den.

“N-no… s-s-she’s c-currently s-supervising b-b-businesses at t-the Dragon’s L-Lair… t-the old Mordino’s D-Desperado cas-s-sino in Virgin S-Street at Reno… S-she o-o-ordered m-me t-to rep-p-port to her t-there…”

That had been all the information he had needed. The knife had switched from Pablo’s eye to his lips.

“W-what are you d-doi…?” – the older man hadn’t even finished asking when he plunged two hard fingers on his toothless gap and fished for the flapping muscle, earning horrified shrieks and wild trashing that didn’t stop him once he got the blade's point at the tongue’s roots to slice through them.

He endured the howling gurgles with a stony face until he shoved down a filthy rag he fished from his pants into Pablo’s mouth to, immediately, gag him.

“Congratulations.” – he enunciated dispassionately – “You are not going to die from blood loss today… but rather in the coming days from an _adequate_ combination of dehydration, starvation, and fatigue once I manage to string you up to a pole on the highest point at the Golgotha.” – relishing in the other’s man terror, he added with a demented, terse smile – “Depending on your physical condition and endurance, you might even resist a whole week before the crows starts pecking at your body while still being alive. Who knows?”

He didn’t even need to bound the shocked man to drag him by his wrists all across the distance between their caravan and the cross-shaped graveyard, plowing a furrow line on the mud with the other’s weight.

He reacted once he shoved his face on the sliding pre-War asphalt, using again his weight to pin him down as he bound both his hands and feet so he couldn’t escape while he prepared everything.

It took a while to subdue him again, another while to kick him in the balls every time he tried to worm his way out of his reach, and a good hour amidst the downpour to find an adequate pole high and sturdy enough to shape it with another one in the form the Legion had been most renowned to string up recalcitrant slaves and Profligates: a cross.

Whereas crucifixions were normally conducted by at least three legionaries, he was able to beat Pablo black and blue so the only struggle he had to deal with, besides the unyielding rain, had been his weight.

Once he had managed to get the other man up sustained by ropes, he had taken his time to nail both his wrists and ankles so he would be sure the worm cannot escape whereas he had injected him with two whole Stimpacks so his wounds and the beating he had received wouldn’t kill him prematurely.

He wanted to be sure he suffered as much as possible before the end.

He took his time admiring his handiwork, feeling for the first time in a whole year like he had recovered the missing piece that completed his former self.

Only… that the man who had been emerging in the Frumentarius’ place didn’t find even the barest shred of pride or joy in what had been the careful work of years shaping a child into a soldier, a tribal into a legionary.

For the man that had come after the legionary faced an emptiness so sudden and inexplicable that it took him a while to digest this new emotion and fully understand it.

He was so used to ignore what should have come to him naturally since he was a boy, that he felt naked and exposed at the absence of the brick wall he was so habituated to present upfront while he masked away the rest.

Crucifixions had been a means to an end: exemplary punishments to dissuade future troublemakers from making noise. Everything in the Legion had been lessons to be taught, values to respect, mistakes to learn from.

But this… this wasn’t a message he had wanted to deliver to others but plain _retribution_.

This crucifixion, perfect and well-executed in its most terrifying expression, was the unholy product of his own wrath, hopelessness and despair.

He couldn’t bear looking at it any longer.

Rain accompanied him as he retraced his steps back to what was left of Cassidy Caravans.

The brahmins were still alive and fully packed, making him now the owner of several thousand caps that could buy him a comfortable life for a long while, even a modest house, should he invested the money he could get out of selling the animals wisely.

Or turn to the caravan life being now the employer instead of the employee.

However, his mind couldn’t have been farther from material gain.

His boots stopped in front of Seward’s curled form.

He had never had a friend before. Comrades and subordinates, sure, but never another soul who would confide their aspirations, dreams and secrets to him willingly without wanting anything in return other than his company.

Seward hadn’t known him, but had accepted him and his silence without reservations, without questioning anything. He had supported him when he had seen him dejected, trying to make his life easier even if he himself had been also broken after a war that had taken everything away from them. He had been happy for him when things had started going well. He had said that he deserved a good life.

He wasn’t sure if friendships were based on knowing everything about the other or not, but what he knew was that he had trusted this man. With his life.

He now knew that he had wanted for him to be content with his woman and his whiskey. After all, who had been him to judge otherwise?

He had buried him the first, not in the Golgotha, but under a rocky salient, safe from the elements. Rifle and beret too. He had died defending something he had loved; he didn’t deserve to be robbed.

Cassidy had been next. He had collected every single piece of her broken jaw and teeth, knotting a scarf around her lower face to preserve some of her dignity. He had shut her eyes respectfully.

He also hadn’t known the woman at all, but she had given him employment and had never commented or even mocked his silence. She had silently approved of his relationship with her friend, whom she had cherished dearly. She had made Seward happy.

He, somehow, felt grateful to this stranger he would otherwise have dismissed, in his previous life, as a mere “Profligate whore”. Such was the way of life, it seemed.

He had buried her next to her lover, her silvery pendant being the last thing disappearing from sight as he had dropped scoop after scoop of earth over her grave.

He had collapsed when he had scoped the last body between his arms to deliver it to its grave.

He hadn’t been sure what he had been expecting to feel once his fingers had accommodated around her familiar form, but the absence of breath… the coolness on her skin… it had been devastating.

Proof enough that she wasn’t going to raise from the dead this time.

This woman, who had been his personal scourge since she had emerged from her grave in Goodsprings, the very reason he now was as ordinary and dissolute as any other man, had turned out to be the punishment he had been waiting for so long.

His lover and tormentor. His old self would have never allowed her to grow this close… this impossibly _unavoidable. Unforgettable._

_Beautiful._

He had knelt down for an indeterminate amount of time, his arms still around her, his temple pressed against hers, the roar of the storm unable to shut down the pain of something he couldn’t possibly translate into words. The only palliative available nothing but bile upon his lips, whispering to his psyche yet another emotion he wasn’t so familiarized with either, but embraced way more easily: revenge.

For revenge he swore as delicate threads of liquid cold ran in-between their embraced forms, disguising the warmness of tears away.

* * *

Sitting at the bar counter of one of the most despicable, seedy hovels he had had the displeasure to visit, he had openly ignored the barman’s unsubtle attempts to make him buy any other beverage that wasn’t as cheap as Nuka-Cola, considered a cocktail “ingredient” more than a true drink around these parts.

If he had found New Vegas’ Strip to be a worthless, diseased pit of vice and sin when Robert House had been in charge… New Reno had surpassed any other sordid experience he could have witnessed at the Gomorrah.

A city entirely ruled and administrated by crime Families, the no official government or police force status was painfully evident given how many drug addicts, thugs, prostitutes, and pimps were the ones calling the shots in the streets. The very moment he had set a foot inside the nicknamed “Biggest Little City in the World”, a junkie had outrightly asked him for a handful of caps to buy himself a can of Jet.

Initially disgusted, he had simply limited himself to ignore the human garbage until the rat had tried to stab him in the back.

Not even Freeside junkies were this openly aggressive. At least not at plain sight during the daytime. They had the prevision to ambush you when you were alone amidst narrow streets.

He obviously had paid in return with the same coin stabbing the rat in the gut. Did someone had come to arrest him or even give him a warning as the Kings used to do?: not a soul.

He had driven a hard bargain for the brahmins and almost everything they had been transporting at the local pens, using his wiles and smooth voice to enthrall the owner long enough until she had accepted to pay the price he had asked for the animals.

Then he had been directed at the miscellaneous local store.

With the maximum amount of caps that he had managed to obtain out of his bartering skills, he had also turned a good amount of his profits into getting himself as armed to the teeth as possible. Even the seller had looked a bit frightened given the _very specific_ calibers he had asked for.

Calibers for _her_ weapons, the only thing he had allowed himself to keep as a memento.

Ironically, he had obtained everything buying from the Van Graffs’ Arms Store on the West Side. A fitting, most _poetic_ justice once they would taste their own lead.

Inquiring a bit around, he had been hounding Wrights’ territory at the East Side to discover that, while being the second Family in New Reno calling the shots along with the Van Graffs, they weren’t what he was looking for. Too rich, too comfortable seated in their consort throne… too _passive_.

The Bishops, on the other hand, were now displaced, almost _disowned_ in their control of the city.

Comparing their seedy establishment to the unpolluted sophistication of the Van Graffs or the decadent splendor of the Wrights, he could tell that the Bishops were neither socially nor financially at their top-notch.

The choice had been evident. What he needed now was to weave his way to the very head of the family to propose a deal he was sure the other man wouldn’t be able to ignore.

Without looking, he asked for another Nuka to the bartender to immediately hear the unmistakable sound of glass clinking.

However, said clinking had an odd pattern quality that made him turn his head to his left, first to land his eyes upon a trembling hand, then to its owner.

The annoying bartender had been replaced by a substitute. A substitute he identified in a heartbeat despite the absence of a beard.

Cato Hostilius.

The two men remained quiet, observing the other as if waiting for the opposite to make the first move.

Cato’s eyes flickered briefly, as if looking desperately for something on the opposite side of the room.

Turning around calmly, the ex-Master Frumentarius followed the other man’s eyes and identified a very discernible tuft of strawy blond hair followed by pink skin and a burly physique dressed in a dark suit.

Gabban.

And neither he looked too happy to see him there.

Turning again to Cato, he tapped lightly the man’s hand for the liquid caffeine to pour inside his glass, since Cato’s frozen hand had been grabbing an uncorked bottle of Nuka-Cola for dear life.

He was pleased when he noticed the other man flinching slightly at the contact.

“Well, well…” – he purred with the exact intonation he knew it would draw his once-subordinate’s attention as well as making him as uncomfortable as possible – “Look at this. My, my, quite the small world we live in, isn’t it?” – his eyes followed the way Cato’s windpipe swirled as he swallowed – “And here I was wondering _where_ you lot might have been when the Butcher was led to the slaughterhouse.” – watching the other man’s eyes widening briefly in terror, he confirmed his suspicions: having had the same idea, his men had also deserted the battle when their war calculus had reached the same conclusions as he had. At least, in his treachery, he wasn’t as lonely as he had initially thought – “Put your fears to rest, _Brother_ , for today I come bearing the providential olive branch instead of a war declaration… at least not for either of you.” – he added, relishing in the way the other ex-Frumentarius squirmed under his calculated gaze – “Now, be a darling, _dearest_ Cato, and tell your new boss that I wish to propose him something he might find… _most intriguing_.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: already working on the Epilogue! I'm trying to make it worthwhile despite it might be substantially shorter than the previous chapters. Don't hate me yet.


	5. Epilogue: Lost in Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really willing to rewrite this last chapter (Epilogue) if you think it left you thirstier for something more elaborated. Just saying.

* * *

_“And so New Reno, the New California Republic’s Neo Babylon where the law hadn’t dared to set a foot in all the years of unstable expansion, met its Synthesis when a solitary figure crossed its gates, signing his name in blood with the first dark soul he stabbed in the gut as a presentation card._

_Some say it had been bound to happen one way or another, some others venture it was fate itself coming to collect its due from the Families._

_Nevertheless, both Wrights and Van Graffs had been too proud and had felt too towering above mere mortals to notice the gradual absences that started to take a toll amidst their employees, the first corpses emerging days later at the Golgotha like bad weed regardless of age, gender or social status. Whispers among locals telling tales of ghosts of the Mojave and the hellbent coyote that led them._

_With deaths soon came desertions; with desertions chaos and doubts began sprouting at every corner, not a single prostitute willing to work the streets as their pimps kept disappearing, thugs and drug-sellers often found amidst the displayed corpses that now populated the cross-shaped graveyard._

_One night, the Wright Estate fell victim to arson, along with every single one of its inhabitants, whose charred remains were later found tightly bound to one another in the manor’s basement by investigators. No one dared to ask questions that weren’t meant to be answered and the case was promptly filed._

_Arrogant and unyielding, fancying her wealth the likes of a cushion that would shield her from everything, the fifty-eight-year-old Matriarch of the Van Graff Family, Tiaret Van Graff, kept trying to buy and/or bribe NCR investigators so they would enlighten her to what… or who she was dealing with to face rejection and silence every single time, no matter how much she pushed in her name and status or threatened with destroying lives and careers.  
_ _Because, for the first time in her life, Tiaret found that there was someone out there that they feared more than they feared her.  
_ _Unable to stand idly as her businesses were ruined, she decided to prepare a trip to the Capital in the hopes that her contacts would aid her since she had so much on them that they wouldn’t… or more likely COULDN’T deny her.  
_ _Leaving the safety of her tightly-guarded casino was her only and last mistake throughout a life full of intrigues, lies, coveted politics, and assassinations in the shadow.  
_ _Though heavily escorted, her traveling party suffered a thoroughly planned ambush that resulted in all of her guards killed and her knocked unconscious.  
_ _The moment she opened her eyes, she wished she had never awakened at all._

_There had been many tales as to how the almighty Van Graff Matriarch, along with her snarling offspring pack, had met their doom. However, since the very woman herself wasn’t able to either speak or communicate in any other fashion than unintelligible grunts after the likely shock she had faced, with every single of her ten children neatly displayed in two rows of crosses, tongues and eyes removed; nobody was able to tell whether she had been rendered a lunatic due to the traumatic events she had been forced to witness… or chemically poisoned since every night her caretakers at the Shady Sands Asylum had to face occasional bouts of lucidity followed by blood coughing, always hissing wild stories of a man with a Nightstalker tongue dressed in a coyote’s hide._

_After the demise of both the Van Graffs and the Wrights, Mr. Bishop, head of the Bishop Family, seized control over New Reno to, instead of governing it like the city’s absolute sovereign, he chose to pact with the NCR Government, allowing law and order to step into Reno’s streets at the price of legalizing AND regularizing gambling and prostitution, securing his business to die placidly an old man in his sleep at the respectable age of seventy-three, having never known his real father._

_As for the solitary figure of the man-coyote, he disappeared the same way he arrived: leaving a trail of blood in his wake that could be traced from the very city gates to the crossroads at the Golgotha, where he shed his skin and abandoned the place to never come back, swallowed by the Wasteland._

_However, more oriented on the romantic, gossiping side, there were also rumors of a woman coming back from the dead at the gates of the Golgotha much earlier than when the coyote’s one-man war had started, leaving behind an empty grave and two more disturbed, perhaps seeking to know if she was truly alone in her undead existence.  
_ _Many affirmed the woman being a spirit that had come back to haunt the coyote for his past misdeeds, others preferred to dress her in the redeemer coat, for the trail of blood that had followed the coyote’s tail had ceased the moment he had arrived at her resting place, wanting to bid his last farewell._

 _And it may be just the hyperactive imagination of one too many drunkards sputtering nonsense around a bonfire in the still of the night… but rumor said that the man-coyote and the undead woman hadn’t actually killed one another or even disappeared in the desert to become a local legend, but instead had sought a common, boring life together between the walls of Vault City.  
_ _And… if one came to visit the aforementioned city’s local junkyard, one MIGHT find a slight resemblance between the couple that owned the place and the descriptions the Van Graff Matriarch provided throughout the years in her less and less frequent bouts of lucidity, screaming angrily about a courier traitor and her Legion lover._

_Nevertheless, the aforementioned couple were nice enough fellows… if one could overlook that the man rarely spoke and the woman never answered any questions regarding her facial scars or the rose pendant she wore along with an old First Recon insignia around her neck, her hazel eyes always turning sad and distant a brief moment before diverting the conversation to more pleasant topics._

_But, and for the record, if one may find in their fancy or their personal morbidity to visit the now decommissioned Golgotha graveyard, where crucified skeletons can still be seen hailing the curious tourist, at the highest point among the field of crosses, one of them remains unoccupied displaying instead the old, discolored hide of a coyote.  
_ _At the foot of the cross, crudely carved with a blade, a statement can still be read among decaying splinters:_

**_VULPES INCULTA WAS HERE_ ** _.”_

* * *

**_THE END_ **

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: am I a sentimental shit? Yes. Am I a hopeless, cheesy romantic? Oh, yes.
> 
> Well... hope you've enjoyed the ride. I decided to write the last part as an Epilogue rather than a whole chapter because I felt that it suited the narration just better. No sense in violent recreation and the like, when the revenge itself is not the important theme here, but it's meaning.
> 
> Thank you a lot to those readers leaving me Kudos (and that sweet, sweet review ❤) and I hope this conclusion is up to your satisfaction. The original version was pure trash, trust me.
> 
> Also, to possible questions being asked about the ending: if the Courier survived Benny, the Big MT, Zion, the Sierra Madre, and the Lonesome Road... wasn't she going to survive another kick in the head? Please.  
> As to how did she survived all of that time in-between... use your imagination xD  
> Why the NCR isn't investigating shit?: due to Mr. Bishop's influence. That's the Republic for ya, baby.
> 
> [EDITED]: wow, I cannot believe the acceptance this has gotten in a matter of a few days! Thank you so much, guys! ❤


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